Tuesday, 29 December 2009

A Libertarian policy at last?

The new Hospital Radio ‘Pod’ on the second floor of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Good God.

Labour is planning to force NHS hospitals to put the hundreds of millions they receive each year in voluntary donations on their balance sheets in a plan to then reduce State funding by the same amount.

Wait... you think that if we cut the funding to the NHS that it would result in either or both of:

1) Lower taxes.

2) The NHS spending less money on tit ops for Nigerian AIDS tourists?

What a bizarre belief. I can't think what would lead you to that conclusion.

Oh, and your BUPA "half the price" service? Got an emergency number, do they? They'll treat chronic or pre-existing conditions, yes? And they won't drop you the instant that they figure out that you're getting your money's worth?

Private "health" insurance is a patch-and-go option. It's not even a health service, let alone a sickness service.

The private sector could do the NHS a lot cheaper and easier including the provision of insurance scheme(s) for both those who can afford (e.g., BUPA) and those who cannot (e.g., a limited service offering).

Triage would continue, A&E would continue and the assets of the NHS (worth squillions) would actually be put to use through leverage.

OH, good maths. I was mulling this over yesterday, and having checked a couple of price comparison websites, established that the govt. could pay for private health insurance for every UK resident for about half the cost of the NHS.

If they haggle a bulk discount and use all the alcohol and tobacco duties to subsidise it (fair's fair), they could probably get it down to one third of the cost of the NHS.

It's simple. Privatise the hospitals and clinics, allow for competition, and in the interim - for however long it takes to undo the rampant statism that has blighted everything for the last few decades - use national insurance as, um, national insurance.

my NHS experiences have been pretty good, but my one Bupa fix-up was better, notably the short waiting list. does anyone know if it's possible to opt out of NI contributions? there's no signed contract, after all.

So it begins with the tax-funded NHS. What next? Those institutions funded by public donation? Don't go near the sea, caves, mountains. Leave stray dogs and cats to starve or cause major accidents on the roads. Close Childline down. And fuck MacMillan nurses, eh? You don't need any of these... yet. As you age conditions such as osteo-arthiritis, Alzheimer's, cancers and other chronic conditions (some induced by smoking and yes, I do smoke) may strike, and your beloved BUPA are not going to give a damn. Enjoy. Please stop trying to kid us that the funds obtained from NHS charities are going to be magically replaced, or somehow not needed any more. They will simply provide more money for more beneftis for more and more immigrants. Enjoy that, too.

For someone who has, until now, struck me as intelligent, you are being extraordinarily myopic. Or is this just more of your mischief?Then again, you might be turned on by leaving all your worldly goods to government "good causes", rather than your loved ones? What is sauce for the goose...

OH: my apoliogies - I have clearly made my point very badly. My concern is that the NHS will be used as a starting point for heavily taxing all donations to all institutions. We do not have to pay, say, Battersea Dogs' Home a penny piece if we choose not to. Many, many people will choose not to, and these institutions will not be funded by the tax payer. Brown is looking for any sort of grab available, and this is the top of a slippery slope. Those who have donated to the NHS, whether misguided or not, did not intend the funding to go to government. To save the NHS we need to find the will to clean it up, not to clean it out.

Are we learning nothing at all about thin ends of wedges? My question was simply: what next? Privately funded institutions? If people who have influence start celebrating government grabs, God knows. Let us not give them any more ideas, please.

Today's NHS, like many other (ex)"loved" institutions are nothing more than job creating schemes designed to gain as many voters as possible.

The other horrifying thought is maybe the State now has more State-funded employees than free-thinking voters, ensuring their political survival.

So much for deMOCKracy when votes are bought in insidious ways such as this.

Although getting rid of a publicly funded NHS would probably be good at reducing the population but not reducing the burden of taxation though. For how many could afford a £30,000 operation? Or do they not matter to the Can-do's as it will possibly mean more transplants to be had.

As always, I don't like socialized care but until we can cure ourselves at home, we'll have little choice otherwise.

Having had the mis-fortune to be closely involved with a couple of NHS institutions over the past couple of months I have a few observations to make.

My wife gave birth to our son in an extremely well known, world famous maternity hospital renowned for research and use of new and cutting edge care techniques. It was opened 45 years ago and has been a centre of medical excellence since. The care my wife received was excellent.

However, looking at the actual hospital, it is a disgrace. My wife was in a room with no heating and mould growing on the walls and windows. In the labour suite radiators are hanging off the walls. It looked grubby and un-clean.

My son is unfortunately in the children's hospital which is connected to the maternity hospital. Again, the care he is receiving is top class but there are parts of wards closed because of nurse shortages due to funding, the nurses are scrambling about for basic everyday equipment which is in constantly short supply. The cleaning is carried out by third party contractors and leaves a lot to be desired and as an example of how fucked up it all is, 25% of the hand wash scrub that everyone needs to use is wasted because the pump syphon that the hospital is issued with does not reach to the bottom of the bottles!

The directors of most NHS Trusts are on mega bucks six figure salaries and the 'management suites' in hospitals always look nice and modern.

If someone having received care in the NHS feels like firing £50 in for the nurses to have a piss-up that's fine, but anyone who has ever raised money for a 'scanner' who thinks that a 'scanner' was bought for their local ward is delusional. So all the government doing here is what it does everywhere else, why that would surprise anyone?

Since the fuckers take more than three times what Bupa and my dentist charge every month to pay for the free use of wastrels they can fuck off if they think I'm likely to collect a penny for them. Nah, pay into your local hospice at least they actually use it for their patients benefit.

If you say in passing that you will 'do a bit of fundraising' for the hospital, the nurses always say make sure the money is specified for a ward or department, not the hospital itself as the cash will be swallowed up buying art for some cunt's office.

I've worked (as a lowly paid temp filing clerk) in an NHS establishment. It was hell. The other clerical people I worked with weren't too bad. But the Health visitors and School nurses were up their collective arses!They obviously didn't know the alphabet (when they took files out they completely misfiled them! - I know I watched on occasion)but thought I should be able to find all the files they needed as and when.While people complain about the admin side of the NHS - the specialists have to get their arses in gear and work towards a common goal.

I may have been paid a mere £6 an hour, but if it takes me 3 or 4 times as long to find a misfiled document (because of the so called nurses and health visitors) that equates to £18 - £24 per hour. Tha

I don't like the idea of somebody in my society dying of a cheap, curable disease. But you know what, that's my moral problem, not yours. I have no right to enforce my morals onto anyone else and the NHS and similar institutions could/should be (mainly) funded by charitable donations.

Likewise unemployment and sickness benefit and the vast, vast majority of government's redistribution of wealth schemes.

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is it's justice; that is its morality.